The following are thoughts from both the Conan Gameplay and from the Sparkcast. They are listed in no particular order.
Conan:
Medals AND Written Indications? Get out. I’m fine with medals appearing in the bottom left, as it has been for the past Halo games. What is the point behind adding words to the middle of the screen? I hear the announcer say “Killing Spree,” I see the Killing Spree medal, why clutter the screen?
In addition to the Killing Spree writing, “Headshot” is also shown, though it appears later because of progression. Why? What valid point does this bring to Multiplayer? All I see is a cluttered screen. Get out of the middle of my screen.
Sparkcast:
“You get so much fanfare when weapons do drop into the space, everybody kind of knows, ‘Okay, weapons have now come down and they’re available.’ You can see which weapons have dropped, so for those players who are more familiar with the maps or haven’t played as much as others, it takes away that, that, 'knowledge advantage,'which um, I think really gets back to kinda the skill of just playing.”
What?!? This makes no sense to me. Why is someone who is smarter punished, while the new player is rewarded? In life, tests aren’t curved on a reverse basis simply because the smarter students have a knowledge advantage. Someone explain why this makes sense to them. Another thing that makes me angry is his vocabulary:
“Fanfare”: No longer is timing weapons something to learn. Instead, 343 makes it so that when weapons drop, there are so many indicators that it’s hard for someone NOT to notice them. This eliminates the skill involved in timing weapons, as well as the advantage gained over people who DON’T time them in that you have a higher likelihood of getting to that weapon first. It’s a classic “You snooze, you lose” scenario, but 343 ruined it by saying “Well, if you take a nap, then the other player shouldn’t gain an advantage because of that time lost. How about any naps are mandatory?”
When talking about “knowledge,” or “skill,” they studder and make them seem like awful and naughty things. It seems as though they don’t really know what they’re talking about, they just have to run with it.
“I gotta say I personally like [instant spawns]. I’m very much a bulldog when I play, I like to jump in situations I have business doing so just to see how many people I can kill before I die…I will do it in situations even when I know it’s the absolutely wrong thing to do.” So because the developers have a specific playstyle, we all must abide by it? Just because you like to run-and-gun, spray-and-pray, what-have-you, doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there with tactics to the game.
“Right when they put the disc in the tray, they can play the game the way they want to in Customs for Tournaments, LANs, etc.” GOOD. This is very smart from 343. As far as I know, certain weapons/AAs are unlocked by a progression system in Matchmaking. By making them all available from the start of Custom Games, they take out that annoying factor CoD has of playtime.
“Once you’ve put in the effort to unlock [the BR], you can use that BR anytime you want to.” BAD. Why make us unlock something that should be core to the game? This makes no sense and, again, helps the people who play more instead of less. This bring about an interesting question: Which do you want to help? More experienced or Less experienced? Random weapons helps less, but these loadouts support more (though not necessarily more skilled).
I’m with you on the on-screen text. I feel it doesn’t add anything to the game except clutter. I’d imagine during split screen play it would be disabled, one can hope anyway. I feel like we’ve gone this far without having the on-screen text of our accomplishments (I mean that’s what the medals are for).
Weapon drops- It doesn’t matter if it caters to new players or not, the better team will get the weapon. A good team isn’t going to let a rocket launcher just sit around so the other team can take it.
“knowledge” and “skill”-They stutter because they know they’ll be criticized for talking about it and ask if they even know what “skill” in halo is even about.
Instant respawns-You referred to one developer as the whole team of developers. Just because he plays a certain way doesn’t mean they all do.
Unlocking weapons-You can pick up BRs and I doubt progression-wise that it will take a long time to unlock it.
I agree with you with the drop pod thing that it really doesn’t make much sense for the casuals to be rewarded over this but think about it this way… When the drop pods drop where do you think the stupid bad players are going to run to? They’re going to run straight towards the drop pods w/o looking both ways before crossing the street.
I honestly think that while this will eliminate one aspect of skill in the halo franchise it will promote another skill that has existed in the past with strategy game types and implicate it into slayer mode. We were also told that the drop pod drops were not random in terms of location. There will still be a timing aspect to win the drop pods fall and The better player will still be able to kill the other players rushing the drop pods and get the contents.
> Conan:
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> Yes they should try to fix the clutter.
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> Sparkcast:
>
> Weapon drops- It doesn’t matter if it caters to new players or not, the better team will get the weapon. A good team isn’t going to let a rocket launcher just sit around so the other team can take it.
>
> “knowledge” and “skill”-They stutter because they know they’ll be criticized for talking about it and ask if they even know what “skill” in halo is even about.
>
> Instant respawns-You referred to one developer as the whole team of developers. Just because he plays a certain way doesn’t mean they all do.
>
> Unlocking weapons-You can pick up BRs and I doubt progression-wise that it will take a long time to unlock it.
I’m kinda agreeing with you on the whole “Better team will get it either way,” but it will still take away spawn timing unnecessarily.
…as they should. They probably aren’t very skilled, as discussed below.
After that one developer said he played like a “bulldog,” everybody else in the podcast was like “Yea, me too! So fun! LOLOLOL” ← Not cool.
Picking up BRs =/= fairness from the start. That’s what has kept Halo consistent in the past: Equal playing field.
This game is seriously the epitome of 2 steps forward, three steps backwards. Strafe? Beautiful. Bloom? Gone! Everything else that sucked? Multiplied. I just don’t see how they look at some of these things the competitive players way, and other things the casual way. It’s highly frustrating.
> This game is seriously the epitome of 2 steps forward, three steps backwards. Strafe? Beautiful. Bloom? Gone! Everything else that sucked? Multiplied. I just don’t see how they look at some of these things the competitive players way, and other things the casual way. It’s highly frustrating.
And to listen to the developers talk about these things as AMAZING is even more frustrating. What happened to skill and common sense? Progression system? What?
> > Picking up BRs =/= fairness from the start. That’s what has kept Halo consistent in the past: Equal playing field.
>
> So, BRs should never be placed on the map because that’s unfair? It worked fine in Halo 2 and Halo 3.
That has nothing to do with what I’m saying. Sorry for a misunderstanding.
What I meant to say was that Picking up BRs =/= Starting with BRs. How many maps have more than one BR sitting in front of a spawn point? Not many.
Fairness from the start means that anybody can have access to anything. Reach semi-accomplished this with Loadouts that were set, uncustomizable.
Halo 4 will take this away with the introduction of a progression system and buying weapons. This means that I won’t have access to something that my opponent has access to simply on the basis of him playing even as little as one second longer than me. It’s ridiculous to say that picking up a BR will eliminate this problem. At most, there will be 1-2 BRs readily available upon spawning, while 6 or 8 players may not have access to them through loadouts.
Imo the words appearing in the middle of the screen arent large enough to get you killed or distract that much. Sure its extra fluff to the game but nothing to seriously complain about.
> Imo the words appearing in the middle of the screen arent large enough to get you killed or distract that much. Sure its extra fluff to the game but nothing to seriously complain about.
It is when they appear in the middle of my screen, right above my reticule, so that it limits my overall vision.
Also, there’s the progression of the words to worry about. Once second it’s just words, the next thing you go it becomes the announcer saying everything, then there’s an annoying guitar riff playing loudly everytime you get that medal, then you get a certain amount of points per medal, which also appears in the middle of your screen.
> > > Picking up BRs =/= fairness from the start. That’s what has kept Halo consistent in the past: Equal playing field.
> >
> > So, BRs should never be placed on the map because that’s unfair? It worked fine in Halo 2 and Halo 3.
>
> That has nothing to do with what I’m saying. Sorry for a misunderstanding.
>
> What I meant to say was that Picking up BRs =/= Starting with BRs. How many maps have more than one BR sitting in front of a spawn point? Not many.
>
> Fairness from the start means that anybody can have access to anything. Reach semi-accomplished this with Loadouts that were set, uncustomizable.
>
> Halo 4 will take this away with the introduction of a progression system and buying weapons. This means that I won’t have access to something that my opponent has access to simply on the basis of him playing even as little as one second longer than me. It’s ridiculous to say that picking up a BR will eliminate this problem. At most, there will be 1-2 BRs readily available upon spawning, while 6 or 8 players may not have access to them through loadouts.
Then you have an incentive to play that one more second to unlock that BR you’re so good with. It’s not going to be something that you will need to play a long time to earn.
So you may have difficulty at first because you are good with the BR, but you only have the AR. After a while you will become better with the AR, making it easier for you to use overall, and then you can get you BR. This could allow you to overall become a better Halo player, regardless of the weapon you start with.
Though none of this is confirmed, it seems the most likely way it will work at the moment.
> > Imo the words appearing in the middle of the screen arent large enough to get you killed or distract that much. Sure its extra fluff to the game but nothing to seriously complain about.
>
> It is when they appear in the middle of my screen, right above my reticule, so that it limits my overall vision.
>
> Also, there’s the progression of the words to worry about. Once second it’s just words, the next thing you go it becomes the announcer saying everything, then there’s an annoying guitar riff playing loudly everytime you get that medal, then you get a certain amount of points per medal, which also appears in the middle of your screen.
>
> Simple medals were fine.
There is no guitar riff…Trust me, using my TurtleBeach headphones I can clearly hear everything when the Red is killed by the blue…As for the Words, the are very small and become see through very quickly…A limited monkey could ignore it if he chose to.
Written indicators sure seem unnecessary, hopefully they’ll do something about them before release…
BR being an unlockeable weapon makes sense, it takes more skill then the AR and hence should not be the default choice to new players. As you play the game and get better, you unlock different and more difficult weapons that require more skill, like Br.
Instant respawn is good since it makes it harder to spawn trap or get cheap advantages, not to mention reduces killtimes and makes the game pace faster.
Customs sounds good
Although I can’t agree with you OP when you start ranting about “skill” when it comes to weapon spawns, any 3years old knows how to handle a stop watch and look at a picture of a map with weapon spawns.
You’re confused, knowledge =/= skill. The new system promotes teamplay and promotes good players for the right reasons. When a power weapon drops everyone gets to know of it, and if you want it you might ave to fight for it, hence you better bring team-mates (teamplay). Camping one spot waiting for it to respawn is not skilled, it’s cheap and not team play at all.
The new system rewards power weapons to those that got the skill enough to take them, those who play as a team and can control any part of the map when the need arises, not those who can camp one spot with timer on their cellphone. With the new system, swordbase wouldn’t even be a problem…
Is Halo supposed to be a game where map knowledge and having a timer/sense of time, should matter more then playing as a team and dominating the map, controlling key parts of it?
Sorry OP, this isn’t CoD, this is Halo, and hence it caters to truly competitive team players, not campers looking for a cheap advantage. Play as a team and win on equal terms, or run to a simpler game that’s easier to abuse…
